If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Because Minions - The Necromancer Thread

I thought this had best be made partly because there isn't one (unless I'm being stupid) and partly so I can steal the wisdom of people better at the game than myself.

So, are my fellow necromancers having a good time? How're you equipping yourself? This is the place for all death-related gubbins.

I'm currently at level 20 so nothing so exciting as an elite skill yet. When trekking about on my lonesome I have a shadow fiend and bone fiend to take most of the punches for me while I stand back with a staff and do AOE stuff. Though yesterday I found a cracking axe so I'm experimenting with axe/warhorn at the moment for single enemies to see how I get on with that.

Overall after being unsure in the early teens I'm quite pleased with necromancy. I need better gear so I can see what sort of damage I can do though once I finally level enough for group things I imagine DPS won't be my main concern anyway.

A brave heart and a courteous tongue. They shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling.

As a scrappy little Asuran, I'm taking inordinate pleasure in occasionally swapping to daggers and getting in someone's face. With the pets to keep some of the aggro off, it works quite well with most stuff. For bosses and the like, I'll send the cannon fodder in and hassle from a distance.
I'm currently at 27 and hoarding skill points for when I hit 30, although I've yet to make any decision on what skill I'll be splurging on.
And I've yet to even dabble in PvP of any kind, so I'm interested in hearing what people have gotten up to and how they've fared.

I've got to 45 with my Charr Necromancer, I came for the minions but I'm staying for the marks and wells. When I tried the Elementalist I only really liked the staff skill set, but with the Necro every weapons been a bit of a delight. For now I'm concentrating on a staff/dagger and warhorn build, concentrating on laying down lots of conditions (especially bleeding and chilled) and combo fields from afar, only switching to the dagger if something nasty gets too close. The rank 20 Curses ability that turns wells into ground targeted spells with a range of 900 really opens things up, Well of Darkness coupled with the rank 10 Curses ability that adds chilled to blind is particularly nasty.

I've tried a bit of WvW, it was an interesting experience. concentrating on marks and wells means if you end up in a 1v1 fight you're almost certainly toast, but run with someone else and you can make a huge difference to the flow of the combat. I strongly recommend the Spectral Walk skill for PvP, the teleport-back can be handy but the real draw is the massive 30 seconds of swiftness it gives.

I'm right at the cusp of lvl 40, and like NieA7, I've come to focus more on curses and wells rather than minions. My main weapon set for PvE has been sceptre and dagger/focus - lots of AE and conditions to deal with mob groups quickly. In WvW, the staff is definitely the necro's siege weapon, especially with those trait advantages (I really like the one that expands the area and makes curses unblockable). One skill I found rather useful is the Spectral Grasp - very handy for grabbing aggressive defenders off of walls.

The most surprising thing I've found is how well-suited the necro is to being a combat medic. There is a signet (Undeath) that can rez up to three people in a small area; a trait that generates a Well of Blood after reviving someone; and all of the Well of Power that converts conditions to boons. Speaking of conditions, there are so many wicked combos to heal allies and afflict enemies...One of my favorites is to use Signet of Spite to flood an enemy with conditions and then follow up with Epidemic.

I can confirm that at 80 the necro is just as fun as ever, although I've avoided becoming a minion master. Currently rocking a staff and sceptre/focus with traits focused around survivability and area damage (20 Spite, 20 Death Magic and 30 Blood Magic). As to elite skills, the only ones really worth it are Flesh Golem if you're focusing on minions and Lich otherwise, the Plague form just isn't worth it. In pvp I've found the necro to be extremely good against single targets and with a good chance of surviving against groups until help turns up and able to carry out pretty much whatever is needed be it point defence, group support or whatever.

Yeah, I can't imagine I'll be using minions much if/when I'm grouping properly, I've spent my trait points much more on support stuff. Unless there was a second necromancer there, in which cases I suppose having the minions (and more importantly their secondary abilities) might be useful situationally.

A brave heart and a courteous tongue. They shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling.

I hit 30 yesterday and thanks to the story quest leading through the early human zones and my picking up all the skill points on the way I've got two elite skills and am well on the way to having enough for Lich Form.

The Flesh Golem is helpful hired muscle, meaning when I'm playing solo I have three minions to get punched in the face on my behalf. The Power Suit is, as I expected, not going to be any use for harder content but is a bit of a giggle for charging about bashing weak mobs.

A brave heart and a courteous tongue. They shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling.

I somewhat put my little necro's survivability to the test last night. I've somehow ended up a little bit under-levelled for the latter areas of Lornar's Pass which meant I was going to have a tricky time of it getting to a vista which as far as I could tell I couldn't reach without fighting some giants. This left me two choices:

1) Fight one veteran ettin (I was level 36 or 37, I think it was veteran 39) and a load of normal 37-39 ones. I tried this first and another player was there with me but he promptly died and left me in the lurch. I held my own and managed to somehow see of a few ettins and some grubs that had got caught up in the fighting but then some more insta-spawned and that was the end of that.

or 2) Take the platforming route which would feature much less fighting but I'd have to kill TWO of the veterans with some cliff-jumping in between. In the end this was the way I did it.

Send the minions (including the flesh golem) in first and throw a well of blood down to keep them alive longer while I biff from a distance. When they're all dead, dodge away from attacks when I'm able to do so, keep hitting him, use death shroud (and I've got traits that increase life force) to avoid some health reduction for a bit and generally arse about trying not to die and keep whittling away until the minions can be summoned again and another well of blood thrown down.

I'm probably badly specced and under-geared and I'm sure you guys would have made easier/quicker work of it than I did but it's nice to have a bit of a feel for how things work on that front even though it'll be a different kettle of fish for group content.

A brave heart and a courteous tongue. They shall carry thee far through the jungle, manling.

PvE usually goes OK for me, but concentrating on the staff and wells makes it much easier to support someone else than solo stuff. The Necro can put out a spectacular number of long lasting combo fields (Well of Blood gives light, the other wells dark, there's a utility skill that puts down a very long lived poison field, spectral wall gives ethereal and the staff can crate a poison field as well as a couple of combo finishers). It's not impossible though, particularly if they're easy to kite - just concentrate on keeping them bleeding and chilled, then start to finish them off with the dagger. The death shroud is very handy like you say, not only as a second health bar but also for a brief skill bar change to allow the rest to recharge.

I'm having real difficulties with the traits though. Marks and wells are mostly about conditions rather than flat damage (so Curses for damage and Spite for duration), but lots of the really useful trait skills are in Death (bigger marks, reduced recharge) and Blood (most anything to do with wells). 20 Curses is a must for ground targeted wells, and at least 10 Death for the bigger/unblockable marks, but after that it gets very awkward. I'm thinking I'll go 20 Death (bigger marks/20% staff recharge), 20 Curses (some low level trait and ground targeted wells) and 30 Spite (something from the tier one stuff, 10% mark damage, 20% damage to foes under 50%), though I hate leaving all those lovely Blood skills behind :\

I somewhat put my little necro's survivability to the test last night. I've somehow ended up a little bit under-levelled for the latter areas of Lornar's Pass which meant I was going to have a tricky time of it getting to a vista which as far as I could tell I couldn't reach without fighting some giants. This left me two choices:

1) Fight one veteran ettin (I was level 36 or 37, I think it was veteran 39) and a load of normal 37-39 ones. I tried this first and another player was there with me but he promptly died and left me in the lurch. I held my own and managed to somehow see of a few ettins and some grubs that had got caught up in the fighting but then some more insta-spawned and that was the end of that.

or 2) Take the platforming route which would feature much less fighting but I'd have to kill TWO of the veterans with some cliff-jumping in between. In the end this was the way I did it.

Send the minions (including the flesh golem) in first and throw a well of blood down to keep them alive longer while I biff from a distance. When they're all dead, dodge away from attacks when I'm able to do so, keep hitting him, use death shroud (and I've got traits that increase life force) to avoid some health reduction for a bit and generally arse about trying not to die and keep whittling away until the minions can be summoned again and another well of blood thrown down.

I'm probably badly specced and under-geared and I'm sure you guys would have made easier/quicker work of it than I did but it's nice to have a bit of a feel for how things work on that front even though it'll be a different kettle of fish for group content.

One thing that can help Minions survive is Marks of Blood as they provide Regen to allies. There's a trait which lets you drop one automatically at the end of every dodge (at a max of one per 10 seconds). So even when minion tanking I'll often roll into the melee to drop a Traited Mark of Blood before backing up and dropping another so my minions gets a bit of regen between Wells.

Marks regen 130 HP/Sec for 5 seconds. The Well of Blood on allies heals for 150HP/sec for 10 seconds. But the marks are pretty spammable with a 6 second recharge (and an additional one every 10 seconds from Dodging). So they can add up as an ally heal.

Another approach for dealing with a Vet with lots of minions is to dump a load of conditions at the vet and his minions (Sceptre/Dagger & Staff are a good combo for this) and then follow up with Blood is Power (for the long term bleeding, plus Life Force for you), Epidemic (which passes all Conditions from the Vet to his minions) and then ridding yourself of the conditions those two powers cause with the 4th Staff power, Putrid Mark (or the offhand dagger power if you're using that). Usually that dooms all the minions to a slow, lingering death while you Tank away in Death Shroud, using the AOE life drain to finish them off.

My current PvE build (only level 33 mind) is a Sceptre/Dagger & Staff with Well of Blood, Blood is Power, Epidemic, Well of Suffering or Darkness and Flesh Golem (although if it's a Event Zerg-fest then I switch to Plague). Plague Form is pretty good at tanking with the Plague of Darkness, blinding things and letting you tank it out while your bleeds & poisons take their toll.

I'm planning a 30 Curses, 20 Death and 20 Blood build which should make me a decent condition-mancer with some useful Well & Mark options remaining available (or switch to a Minion spammer / tanker perhaps although that's a more of an item dependent build).

The downside is that on a zerging team event where things melt there's little time to set up and take advantage of all those bleeds until/unless some Vets or the Boss appears. It's just a case of "drop AOEs" in that case.

Hey, could you tell me what necro skill is it that has a loud noise somewhat like a flock of mad turkeys and the visual effect is a lot of pinkish balls flying from the target to the necro? It totally destroys my thief.

Oh! So it's actually an enemy? I also recognized this thing when I tried playing a Necromancer. I was under the impression that the noise was just part of the "sound effects" and won't cause any damage. Thanks for the info.

Mainly interested in feedback on the traits. I've mainly focused on condition damage and wells -- but have recently discovered that death shroud is useful for survivability and for dealing damage to several enemies at once, so have taken a couple of DS-related traits.

(I haven't bothered telling the build editor about runes -- I have almost all Afflicted, fwiw)

I`m running Staff and Axe/Warhorn on mine, specced (if I recall correctly) 20/10/20/20/0, mostly focusing on staff and axe skills as well as Wells. My ulti is usually the Flesh Golem (snort) to tank and a Well of Blood, Signet of the Locust (SPEEEED, and obnoxious lifesteal), Well of Suffering (no, not Twilight) and the final slot switches between Well of Corruption (damage and boon-steal are useful in open-world PvE), Well of Power and Signet of Undeath (those last three are all extremely useful in dungeons).

Combat usually involves sending in the golem to tank and blasting away with staff marks ordered by skillbar while continually circle-strafing and letting the enemy aggro the golem instead of me. When I encounter something meatier I switch to the axe/warhorn (also useful to speed up travel) but otherwise use the same tactic (interestingly enough the axe doesn`t have any projectiles apparently, meaning reflecting shields are not a problem).

The necro is by far the most durable caster, being able to go toe-to-toe with tanky warriors and guardians and win, or at least hold them off long enough for help to get there. I haven`t tried using my old Blood Fiend in PvP, and I haven`t used him in a while in PvE either, but it can easily restore ~1000 HP per attack, and seems to attack once every 2-3 seconds, while also having good health, meaning the necro can easily match a guardian for annoyance value.

Overall, there are few things he can`t do, and is a lot more versatile than other casters IMO since he can do both tanking as well as matching Elementalists in support and (to a certain extent) damage, while also having the in-your-face capabilities of Guardians and Warriors, though he will lose. Eventually. Probably a few seconds before the match ends.

Warhorn's an interesting choice. I don't find it especially useful, particularly when running the speed signet. The vuln/chill on focus or -- even more so -- the condition transfer and weekness on dagger -- seem much better options.